In troubleshooting PC problems in Windows, you often have to copy text from message boxes that look like this:

If you try and highlight the text with the mouse, nothing happens.  But there’s a little known trick that works like a charm.  Simply, press Ctrl-C.  It will copy the Window title, message text and button labels.  It’s a very useful trick for when you get an error message and need to do a Google search on that error.  I just stumbled upon this recently and for years, I’ve been manually typing the error text in.  When trying to fix these problems, it’s no fun having to type in “Access violation at address 10002593 in module ‘LIBMYSQL.dll’…” Especially with the arcane wording usually involved with Windows error messages.  I’m not sure why this “feature” isn’t well documented somewhere, but I’m glad I finally found it.  It’s just a quick tip but, I hope this helps you as much as it helped me recently.

I tried an experiment recently and created a Windows 2003 Server running Microsoft Exchange in a virtual machine.  I forwarded every port from my router to this virtual machine.  To my surprise, having left this machine idle and running 24 hours a day, within four days, I had a virus on this machine!  Of course, I just deleted the entire machine after it was infected.  This was easy to do since I was running VMWare.  I don't know how the virus got there or who put it there, but this justs demonstrates that people are constantly polling every IP address looking for vulnerabilities to attack.

So, how does a router help?  Well, a router sits between your computer and the internet.  By default routers don't expose any ports unless you specifically configure port forwarding.  This makes it really difficult to get to your computer from the outside since the router is basically discarding all unsolicited requests to communicate with computers on your internal network.  I haven't heard of any viruses that attack your router's firmware, because I would imagine that it is difficult to do. 

So if you don't have a router, I'd suggest you get one.  They're pretty cheap these days.  However if you don't get a router, the other option would be to get good personal firewall software and have it block the ports.  In my experience the problem with software based firewalls is that most people don't understand how to configure them and the default configuration is set with the security very high so that IM clients, Windows networking, and other useful things are blocked by default.  But if you can configure it correctly, a software based firewall is a good solution as well.

A MAC address is usually represented as a string of hexadecimal numbers that looks something like this 00:14:38:44:A7:4A.  The colons really don't mean anything and just make it easier to read. 

A hexadecimal number is nothing special.  If you are not familiar with the term, basically it's just a regular number, but represented in a different counting system (base 16), rather than the counting system that humans are used to (base 10).  Base 16 just means that one digit can represent 16 unique values (0-15), rather than (0-9) which we are all used to.  Computers use binary (base 2), and everything to a computer is either 1, or 0.  So hexadecimal is used as a shorthand to represent binary numbers.  There is more to that, but for now, that's all you really need to know about hexadecimal. 

Basically, when manufacturers physically create a network card, whether it's a wireless network card, or a regular wired network card, they stamp a serial number on the card.  This number is a unique identifier, which means no other network card, whether created in the present, in the past, or in the future will have that same exact number.  Because this number is unique, devices created by different manufacturers can be trusted to work together.  Your home router depends heavily on this number to reliably communicate with the different computers plugged into the router.  For example, if you have several computers in your home connected to a router, you typically share an Internet connection that is managed by the router.  When you  surf the web, data passes to the router which then routes it out to your cable modem or DSL modem, and then out to the Internet.  Web pages that you see are transmitted back along that same path in reverse order.  For your router to know which computer to send that data to, on a hardware level, it relies on the MAC address to figure out which computer in your home receives the data. 

If MAC addresses were not guaranteed to be unique, this whole process would not work. For example, if two computer plugged into a router had the same MAC address, the router would be confused as to which computer to send the data to.  There would be a conflict.  It would be as if two houses on your street had the same address.  When the mailman comes, he wouldn't know which letters to send to which house.

MAC Address Filtering

Most home wireless routers have an option for MAC Address Filtering.  This is a security measure which tells the router to only communicate with MAC addresses that match exactly to it's list of trusted MAC addresses.  You would enter the MAC address of the wireless cards that people in your home have.  Anyone who is not on this list will not be able to access your network or surf the web.  Remember, this is not on a per computer basis, it's on a per network card basis.  So, if for example, you have a USB wireless network card, or a PC Card type network card that was on the trusted MAC address list of the router, then if you attach that card to a different computer, that new computer would be allowed access, because the MAC address would match.

What is my MAC Address?

In Windows, to find out your MAC address you could open a command prompt by going to the start menu and selecting "Run".  In the dialog box type "cmd.exe".  You should see a command prompt.  Now type "ipconfig /all".  A list of network cards attached to your computer will appear and you'll see the MAC addresses along with other information like IP addresses, for each one.

Can I Change My MAC Address?

In most cases you can.  If you go to Control Panel/Network Connections, you'll see a bunch of network adapters.  Right click the one you want and select "Properties".  Then press the "Configure" button and choose the "Advanced" tab.  You'll probably see an item called "Network Address" or something like that, where you can select and enter a new MAC address.  It's not guaranteed but most network cards these days have this capability. 

It's not advisable to change your MAC address.  Like I stated before, if two devices have the same address, things will not work right or the network.  So, you better know what you are doing if you want to mess around with this.  Practically speaking, as long as you choose a new MAC address that is not identical to any others on your network, you should be fine. 

So, for a general overview that's basically it about MAC addresses.  Their are other interesting things about MAC addresses like you can figure out who the manufacturer of the network card is by looking at certain digits in the MAC address.  Anyway, if you can understand some of the concepts I've explained here, it'll help you understand a little bit more about how networking works. 

One solution is to have the sender put the .EXE file in a Zip file and then send it.  Outlook allows Zip files which is basically a container of compressed files that you can put anything inside of.  You would then receive the file and unzip it.  Basically, you would just click on the zip file and it would open like a folder in Windows Explorer, upon which you could get to your .EXE file.  That's a lot of extra steps and is a hassle if you are often dealing with sending and receiving executables.

The other way is to disable the blocking of .EXE files.  This involves editing the Windows Registry.  There is a registry key where you can specify file extensions to allow.  The key is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security\Level1Remove

Change the key to include .EXE.

Outlook by default blocks several other file extensions.  You can specify more than one by adding a semicolon between each one like this:

.mdb;.exe;.bat;.com;

Here is the export of my registry key.  You can cut and paste it into a text file with a .reg extension and import it into your registry.  Just edit the "Level1Remove"=".mdb;.exe;.bat;.com;" line to contain the specific extensions that you want to allow.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security]
"Level"=dword:00000003
"UseCRLChasing"=dword:00000001
"OutlookSecureTempFolder"="C:\\Documents and Settings\\root\\Local Settings\\Temporary Internet Files\\OLK8\\"
"Level1Remove"=".mdb;.exe;.bat;.com;"

So, now you can receive any type of file in Outlook 2003 by specifying the extension in this registry key.  But be careful, because by allowing .EXEs you open yourself up to potentially dangerous applications.  Make sure you know what you are clicking on is safe before doing so.

#1 Testing New Software and Service Packs

With Microsoft operating systems, it's often times a gamble to install a new piece of software.  Most of the time, things are OK, but every once in a while you really regret having installed something that really screws up your system.  Also, Microsoft has a policy of not letting you downgrade for some of their applications and service packs, namely Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.  That's good for Microsoft, but not good for the customer.  Well, instead of "gambling", what I do is set up a virtual Windows XP installation that I use to try out new software and upgrades.  This way if anything goes wrong, it doesn't trash my entire system.  Better yet, I take a snapshot in VMware and have it rollback to that snapshot every time I reboot the virtual machine.  So I can mess around all I want and stress test the software knowing that it will go back to a stable state when I reboot the virtual machine.

#2 A More Sensible Way of Testing Shareware

Most shareware these days give you a 30 day trial, after which you need to pay for the application for it to keep working.  It's a very fair system and allows you to "try before you buy".  Well, I test a lot of software and sometimes I install something, use it once and get caught up doing something else for a while.  The 30 days then runs out before I get a chance to really try it out.  If this happens a lot to you, then consider testing it out on a virtual machine.  The 30 day trial information is typically stored somewhere in the Windows Registry, and if you revert back to a previous snapshot, you can reinstall the software and get a new 30 days, just as if it was your first time running it.

#3 Running an Exchange Server to Keep Outlook Synchronized

I have four computers that I regularly use and I've searched for years to find a way to keep Outlook in synch among them.  I've tried a system of copying the .pst files regularly (bad idea), and have looked for software solutions without any success.  Finally, I figured out that running a Windows 2003 Server with MS Exchange inside a virtual machine is the way to go.  The initial setup is a little bit tricky if you're not familiar with installing servers and server software, but once you get it going, it works very smoothly.  Also, for many, the initial cost of buying the software might be prohibitive.

The other benefit is that you really don't have to commit too much in terms of resources to the server.  I have a virtual server running all the time and it's very stable with 150mb of RAM.  If you only have a handful of users, that's more than enough memory.  To put this in perspective, I have a machine with 3 gigs of RAM and Opera is currently using 260mb of RAM.  Admittedly, I do have 43 windows (tabs) open.

Synchronization is pretty much flawless with Exchange, so it's really a great way to keep all your computers running Outlook synchronized.  I've been doing this for a couple of years now and have had a hassle free experience.

#4 Trying out Linux or Mac OS

I've never installed a Mac OS in a virtual machine and from what I understand the legality of it is hazy.  But there are resources on the web to show you how.  I do run Linux in a virtual machine and it works very well.  I recommend Ubuntu.  It's very easy to install and gets you up and running quickly with a lot of useful preinstalled applications.

#5 Creating a Network Environment for Testing

If you're a network administrator and want to test out a new deployment of network machines and/or configurations, VMware is a safe way to test it.  You could create a bunch of virtual servers and workstations, and have them isolated in their own private network so that nothing harms your existing network.  The other advantage is that it's easy to clone the workstations.  Instead of installing Windows XP over and over on several machines, you can create a new virtual machine with the "Clone" feature of VMware and save a lot of time.  Actually, you could even just copy the folder of an existing virtual machine to create a new machine and it would work.  VMware is very flexible in this regard.  Of course, you need a lot of RAM to run a bunch of machines, but RAM is cheap these days, so that shouldn't be a problem.

#6 Running Windows Apps in Linux

Wine for Linux is a great idea and I am very impressed with the work that's been done on it.  Cloning the Windows API is no small feat.  Unfortunately, a lot of applications just don't work right using Wine.  I struggled with it for a while before deciding to just run a virtual Windows XP install under Linux.  It works like a charm.  I haven't come across any compatibility issues and the performance is good too.  So this way you can run Linux, but still have access to the Windows apps that you still use.

#7 Running Legacy Applications

Not many people have a need to run legacy apps, but once in a while, it's fun for me to run one of those old DOS based games that I used to play, like the original "Civilization".  Well, if you want to do that, then just load up DOS in a virtual machine and your ready to go!  It works well.

#8 Mounting ISO Images of CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs

If you don't have access to programs such as WinMount or Alcohol, you'd have to burn a disc to access the files in an .iso or .nrg(Nero)file.  VMware has the ability to read these files and mount them as virtual DVD drives.  A very handy feature in general.

Well, there you have it.  I'm sure there are a lot more uses for this excellent piece of software, but this is what I mainly do with it.  It's become and indispensable tool for me, so hopefully this will give you some ideas too.

The listener is usually a software application that needs to receive data over network or the Internet.  So for example, a web server would be listening on port 80 for people who want to surf the web site it's hosting.  The browser on the user side would specify a web address like http://www.yahoo.com and it would get translated into an IP address like 215.135.85.2 (fictitious), and data would be sent to that computer which has a web server running and listening on port 80.  So a line of communication will be established between the client computer and the server over this port 80, and the client would initiate the communication and request that it would like to see the yahoo home page.

Browsers assume that web servers are listening on port 80 because this is a standard.  In fact, the first 1000 ports are reserved for specific purposes.  You could write software that communicates on these ports, but you're really not supposed to, and it might interfere with other software running on the computer.  For example port 110 is used for POP3 email, and 25 is used for SMTP.

You could run a web server on a different port if you want.  However the browser would have to specify explicitly to send the data on a different port because browsers are programmed to work on port 80 by default.  The most common example of a web server listening on a different port is your home wireless router which listens on port 8080 by default for most brands.  Typically these routers have web based configuration screens, meaning there is a simple web server built into the router for the sole purpose of letting users configure the settings using forms viewed through your browser.  To access these configuration pages you'd need to specify the port explicitly like this: http://192.168.0.1:8080.  Notice the :8080 on the end of the address. That means, communicate over port 8080.

So that's basically it.  It might seem confusing but basically you should remember that communication must occur over a port, and TCP/IP data sent will have and IP address and a port number in the packet.  If a computer isn't listening on the port your sending data over, then that data is ignored.

Zoom!

For me, zooming is one of the most important features in a browser.  You can customize the size of the text and images and no other web browser does it better.  Firefox has a zoom feature.  By default, only text can be zoomed in Firefox.  You can add an extension that'll do images as well, but the rendering on Firefox just does work well.  The text will overlap, the granularity of the zoom is coarse, and the pages many times just ends up unreadable.  Internet Explorer is a joke when it comes to zooming.  In Opera, you can specify the zoom level in increments of 10%.

Pressing the [6] or the Keypad [*] key will restore the zoom level to the original 100%. 

Incidentally, pressing [F11], will bring you to full screen mode.  This will be handy at times when you're using zoom.

Fit to Width Ctrl-[F11]

Often times, web pages have text that scroll off the screen, causing you to have to scroll left and right to read the contents.  This often happens when you use the zoom feature.  Ctrl-[F11] is a toggle key that turns off and on the "Fit to Width" feature which renders the web page such that everything fits nicely on the screen so that you don't have to scroll left and right.  No other web browser can do this and Opera does it very well.

Navigating Links

If you press [/] and start typing the browser will search for text and move the page as you type.  It's a quicker way to search than the traditional Ctrl-[f] find function.  However, there is a lesser known function that works on searching only links. 

If you press [,] or [.] and start typing, the same type of search will occur but only text with associated links will be searched.  Once the link you want is highlighted, simply press [Enter], to "click" the link.  Pressing Ctrl-[Enter] opens the link in a new tab.  Pressing Ctrl-Shift-[Enter] opens the link in a new tab in the background.

You can scroll around the page by links using , [A] and [Q], or Ctrl-[Down Arrow] and Ctrl-[Up Arrow].  You can also navigate using the Shift-[up,down,left,right Arrow] keys.  I use these all the time because I hate using the mouse!  Again, once you get to the desired link, you can press [Enter] to "click" the link.

Using Nicknames

When you bookmark a link, a useful thing to do is to assign a nickname.  You can do so by pressing the "Details>>" button after selecting "Bookmark Page", and filling in the field.  Once you have a nickname for a bookmark you can go to that page by pressing Shift-[F2] and type in the nickname.  The best part of this function is that Opera is smart enough to figure out the nickname as you type.  So, if you for example only have one nickname assigned that starts with the letter "O", then as soon as you type "O", it will load the page.  If more than one nickname starts with the same letter, then you only have to type until the nickname is unique.  For example, if you have two nicknames, one called "opera", and another one called "outpost", then typing "op" will load the Opera page, and typing "ou" will load the outpost page.  Very convenient, because with a little creativity, you can name things in a way that gives the most commonly used pages the shortest amount of keystrokes.

Page Back and Forward Keys

Opera has several keys that do the same thing for going forward and backward in your browsing history.  Here are the pairs for backward and forward:

Pressing Alt-[z] brings up a list of backwards history of web pages, and Alt-[x] shows a forwards history of web pages. 

If you are reading an article with a series of pages, pressing Shift-[x] will take you to the next page.  This works by looking for a link with the keyword "next" (you can configure what keywords it looks for as well).  If there is a link on the page labeled next, Shift-[x] will assume that takes you to the next page in the article.  To see how this works, go to Google.com and do a search.  Notice that there is a link for the next page of search results.  Press Shift-[x], and you will "magically" be taken to the next page of search results. 

TABS

Ctrl-[T] opens a new tab (Ctrl-[N] for a tab in a new window), and Ctrl-[W] closes a tab.  To navigate through your tabs from left to right and right to left, you can press the [1], and [2] keys.  To cycle through the tabs in the order you last viewed them, use Ctrl-[Tab], and Ctrl-Shift-[Tab]. 

Typing in Web Page Addresses

Ctrl-[L], or [F8] will bring you to the address bar where you can type in the new web address you want to load.  [F2] brings up a dialog box where you can do the same thing.  [H] works like [F8] and Ctrl-[L], but it also opens the drop down list with a history of web pages that changes as you type. 

Miscellaneous

Ctrl-[U] - erases all the text in text box that you are currently in.  It works on the web pages as well as Opera specific menus and dialog boxes.  This is one of my favorites, but hardly anyone knows about it!

Ctrl-[F7] - toggles the scroll bars

[F4] - toggles the side bar.

Ctrl-[Backspace] - Moves up one level based on Web Address.  Ex.  http://www.opera.com/support/ becomes http://www.opera.com/.

Shift-[P] - Print preview

Ctrl-Alt-[B] - Open bookmark page

Ctrl-Alt-[H] - Open history page

Ctrl-[Space] - Go to your home page designated in Preferences (Alt-P), under "General"

Ctrl-[R] - Reload the current page.

[F12] - Quick preferences.

Well, this by no means a comprehensive list.  But keyboard shortcuts are difficult for people to remember so I tried to highlight some of the ones that I use the most.  The Opera browser is a great browser for people who use a lot of keyboard shortcuts.  On top of that, I think it's the best browser available today.  If you're not using Opera, you should at least try it out.  Get it here!

One easy "trick" that I like to do is utilize the start menu to run commonly used applications.  If you go to the Start menu in Windows XP and right click on an application in "All Programs", you'll get a context menu that'll let you "Pin to Start Menu".  So, what you can do is pin a bunch of frequently used icons onto your Start Menu, for easy access.

But, to truly work efficiently, you can access these programs with the keyboard.  Pressing the Windows Key on your keyboard will automatically open the start menu.  From there, you type the first letter of the application name that you want to run.  If for example you pin "Microsoft Word 2003" to the start menu, you can press Windows Key, then "M", which will put you on the "Microsoft Word 2003" icon.  Then you can press enter to launch the app.  If however that is the only icon with a label that starts with the letter "M", it will launch immediately without pressing enter. If you have several icons with the same first letter, pressing that letter multiple times will cycle through them.  What I do is rename the icons to keep the first letter unique whenever I can.  For example instead of , "Microsoft Word 2003" , "Microsoft Excel 2003", and "Microsoft Outlook 2003", I would rename them to just "Word", "Excel", and "Outlook".  This way I wouldn't have to cycle through them with the "M" key.  Now, if I press W, E, or O, the respective applications will launch immediately.  Most of the time, your running the same applications every day so it's a lot easier than sifting through the "All Programs" menu each time.

So there you have it.  A quick and easy way to save time starting applications using the "Pin to Start Menu" function.

Recently, the microSD format of flash memory is taking off and for good reason.  It's small, the capacities are equal to the other formats, and the prices are comparable to the other formats (and much cheaper than memory stick, or xD).  I came across this adapter called the PhotoFast cr-5300, which is a $10 device that you can put a microSD card in, and use in Memory Stick Pro Duo devices.  Why would you want to do that?  Well, simply put, it's much cheaper to buy microSD.  Plus you get the added benefit of unifying your memory.  I have a camera that uses SD and a PSP that uses Memory Stick.  Now I can just buy microSD memory and use it in both.  microSD to SD adapters are everywhere and now with the Memory Stick adapter, I think microSD is the most versatile format.

The other good thing about microSD is its size.  They are tiny, and I also use a 2 gig microSD USB key drive for carrying around and transferring files from computer to computer.  8 gig cards are available and hopefully a 16 gig microSD card will be released.  The only problem I see with microSD is that at 11mm x 15mm x 1mm, they might be easy to lose.  But I can live with that!  I think it's a wonderful format and hopefully manufacturers will consolidate and standardize their products on this format so we don't have to waste any more time and energy on the insane number competing flash memory formats.

  When sending emails, I usually start typing the first few characters of the email address and Outlook magically figures out who I want to send it to, based on emails I've composed in the past.  The problem is, every time I install Outlook on a new computer, I lose the AutoComplete and have to start from scratch. 

Well, it turns out there's a simple way to migrate your AutoComplete list from computer to computer.  There is a file with a .nk2 extension that stores the AutoComplete information.  It resides in the C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder.  (You need to replace {user name} with the name of the user that's logged in.  If you copy this file to the new computer, all your AutoComplete information will work on the new install.  The file is basically a list of email addresses that you've typed in the past, and there is only one file involved.  So it's a pretty simple procedure.

It's also easy to backup.  If you do regular backups of important files (and you should), then just look for the .n2k file and back it up.  This will work even if Outlook is open.  Another interesting thing is that a company called NirSoft has a free utility that allows you to view and do some light editing on your AutoComplete file.  With this utility you can export your AutoComplete emails to a text file or html file.  At the very least it's interesting just to see what's in there.  The other good thing about NirSoft NK2View is that it's a very lightweight application.  You don't need to install anything.  Just download it, unzip it into a folder and run the executable.  For viewing and exporting your AutoComplete emails, I highly recommend it.